Psychology is a backwards science.

Post Reply New Topic

Psychology is a backwards science. It is underdeveloped because the subject is taken up by those who do not have appreciation for scientific deduction, but for unscientific speculation, the kind that anyone is capable of but a modern psychologist is supposedly more so because he has read many psychology books. One would be so surprised at how bad they are at piecing together data like what a real scientist are capable of.

I wish to give you an example of scientific and non-scientific approach. I also wish to use an animal for this example simply because animals are simpler and there isn’t any political motives for manipulating the truth.

Faced with a question like Ostrich, I feel that most psychologists would answer.

I ask “Why do Ostriches bury their heads in the sand”
Psychologist “Ostriches bury their heads in the sand because they are overcome by such fear when seeing a predator, they take the quickest escape from it; put their heads in the sand, they cannot face the danger.”

I ask “Why would they all be so stupid in doing that when it will not help them”
Psychologist “Ostriches are very stupid animals they have a brain the size of a walnut - only 3 centimetres long, smaller then its own eyes.

False Conclusion: Ostriches are very stupid its behaviour is counterproductive to its survival. They sacrifice material gain (their own lives) for psychological
gain of ignoring the danger by burying its head in the sand.

Darwinian psychologist would see things differently. He would understand that any animal or human for that fact, do not consistently have actions that are counterproductive to its survival as this goes against the laws of survival of the fittest. In the case of the Ostrich, there must be an advantage of burying their heads in the sand or they do not actually do it.

Looking on the internet I found this , supporting the very theory quote “This comes from the supposed habit of ostriches hiding when faced with attack by predators. The story was first recorded by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, who suggested that ostriches hide their heads in bushes. Ostriches don't hide, either in bushes or sand, although they do sometimes lie on the ground to make themselves inconspicuous. The 'burying their head in the sand' myth is likely to have originated from people observing them lowering their heads when feeding”
Our emotions and behaviour are given to us by nature to help us survive. They are not there to get in the way or compromise our ability to survive, regardless of how stupid the creature being described human or otherwise.

Think about the relationship a car has with its engine management computer. The computer sole purpose it serve the car much the same way a human brain is to serve the body. The engine management computer isn’t going to rev the engine or create an over rich fuel mixture purely to fulfill its own software subroutine or just to be happy. One of my work mate’s cars engine management computer wasn’t happy if she had driven too many short journeys in traffic opposed to longer freeway journeys. It would then go into limp-home-mode. Anyone with a half a brain isn’t going to come to the conclusion that it is just doing that to stay happy, in its own car computer happy world or to be spiteful, just for the sake of being spiteful. But come to the conclusion that if this behavior is consistent with this model of car, it must be of benefit to the car. And it is. It encourages the driver to avoid only taking short journeys and burn off the carbon from the filter and protect the engine as smoky emission are a problem with diesels.

i much rather enjoyed reading that post, thank you

Yeah ok, that is your theory....whatever.

But there are genetic diseases and errors that lead to strange traits or behavior. Everything isnt perfectly tuned to be useful. Some things are simply rare enough, or random enough, or harmless enough to reproduction (historically) that it can carry itself along in the gene pool without being significantly selected against.

Other traits can bobble along because you need a full set of alleles to trigger it. Or the cause could be environmental, such as a problem in the womb, or exposure to lead, or mercury.

Psychology is a bit of a softer science because the metric is often simply "functions abnormally in society". That can be a subtle effect, but sometimes it's not.

...

Last edited by claire-333 on 21 Apr 2009, 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Psychology is generally not considered to be scientific anyway but some of modern psychology is surprising scientific. For instance neuropsychology. It doesn't pretend to be perfect, but the standard tests are an example of methodical data collection and alanysis, and it has proven to be useful identifying relative cognitive deficit. They don’t know want to do once they have found it, but that is to be expected.

Psychiatry in contrast is complete pseudo-science from start to finish. That is the irony, given they are often ones with the authority but don't want to take the responsibility that comes with it choosing to hide behind their profession. There isn't one iota of science involved. Many doctors and scientist agree with me too. it is a witchcraft of arbitrary checklist with no really mythology or basis in rational thought.

Experimental and neuropsychology are quite scientific. As a discipline, psychology is still having to shake off the unscientific image it received during the psychoanalytic era (which lasted into the 1970's and '80's in the US). I don't know how psychology functions in the UK (my ex-fiancee indicated that there are extremely negative laws regarding mental health care and employment), but in the US, most psychologists would not answer the question like that.

like 0 said, psychiatry seems to be the bogus one out here

I can't take psychology very seriously as a science. A lot of its methodology is problematic. That said, it can be interesting, even if it is probably closer to the social sciences rather than the natural sciences.



Math major here, by the way.

Psychology is really a mixed bag I'd say, sometimes scientific and sometimes complete and utter bilge. But it's inexplicably entertaining bilge.

Arguing from the mythical misconception that ostriches bury their heads in the sand is quite appropriate for characterizing the quality of the OP's thinking processes. People have real mental problems. Very intelligent doctors and other people concerned with social services genuinely are attempting to help people in severe mental distress. No doubt many mistakes are made and these can have disastrous results but to dismiss a whole discipline of people trying to understand and help people in deep trouble is disgraceful.

This a good example. I think this goes on the line of Darwinian psychology, which is verified by biology which is verified by physics, which is based on mathematics.

This a good example. I think this goes on the line of Darwinian psychology, which is verified by biology which is verified by physics, which is based on mathematics.[/quote
The concept of hierarchy here is amusing elitist nonsense constructed from actual inter-relationships.

Not really- biology has no application to chemistry, physics or mathematics, which can all safely ignore biology. Physics builds on the foundation of math, chemistry builds on the foundation of physics, biology is quite separate but still largely dependent on chemistry. It's more of the ones to the right in the comic being more fundamental and the ones on the left being more comprehensive and all-encompassing rather than it being a hierarchy.

But yeah, the comic is just elitism. Doesn't stop it from being funny.

You can play with various disciplines like a kid playing with wooden blocks piling them every which way but there are areas of biology that have nothing whatsoever to do with chemistry and vice versa and that's true of all of them. Chemists have learned a great deal about chemistry by seeing how various biological systems work in ways not conceived before.

In fairness psychotherapy was a field in itself, which predated modern psychology. It is total nonsense but not the only nonsense field still skirting around.

One main requirement of a scientific study is it doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but attempting to make genuine observations no matter how difficult.

What still surprises me is why there isn’t enough limelight on just how BS psychiatry is. Heck it is questionable whether they should actually be licensed as doctors at all. They certainly shouldn’t be given the carte-blanche the have now.

One flaw in study of human is we tend to treat ourselves as a special case rather than animals. We can’t insulate ourselves very well from self influence. It is one of the trickiest conundrums in setting up experiment involving humans.